There are always hiccups in the first few weeks of school. But, in Howard County last year, the school bus fiasco felt like a case of hiccups that wouldn’t go away.

Bus routes changed at the last minute. Drivers did not show. Twenty routes were canceled, leaving 2,400 students stranded. Parents wanted the superintendent gone and demanded answers from Zūm, the California tech company hired to operate nearly half the district’s bus routes. Resignations followed.

Howard County Public School System officials do not want a repeat of last year and say they’ve done “significant work” to understand what happened last August and stop it from happening again. Among the promises: no last-minute route changes and no out-of-state drivers making wrong turns.

The goal is “a system that starts on day one, during week one, in as stable of a position as possible,” said Jahantab Siddiqui, the school system’s new director of transportation. Siddiqui most recently served as the chief administrative officer for the school system.

Here’s what’s changed since last year.

What’s going on with Zūm?

The San Francisco-based company is in the second year of a three-year, $27 million contract with the school system. Siddiqui said Zūm “has a stable management team,” at its Howard County bus lot. “I do believe that we’re in a better position moving into next year,” Siddiqui said.

Zūm was one of the dozen or so bus contractors that attended a spring meeting with the school system as part of an effort to rebuild relationships that had soured.

“It was sort of a level-setting to say we’re all partners, we’ve got to work together,” Siddiqui said.

Zūm deferred media questions to the school system.

Are there enough bus drivers this year?

Last August, Zūm had to fly in 72 drivers from Washington state to help cover its routes. Then 20 drivers didn’t show up for work on the first day of school.

That’s not happening this year, Siddiqui said.

Zūm, according to information the company shared with Howard schools, has “more than enough in-state drivers that are trained, certified, have completed their in service and are ready to drive,” Siddiqui said. This year, all bus drivers had to complete their annual training by Thursday.

“To start the school year, as of right now, we need 502 drivers. But as of yesterday [Aug. 13] we have 562 that have completed in-service [training],” Siddiqui said. The focus now, Siddiqui said, is to make sure those drivers are completing dry runs so they are ready for day one.

However, the school system is juggling more special education routes this year. This time last year, the district had 1,200 requests for specialized transportation. As of Wednesday, the request was at 1,600. “And that’s before we get the school year started,” Siddiqui said. “That number grows as the school year goes on.”

The school system will likely have to enter into several emergency contracts to cover the special education routes, Siddiqui said. Last year the school system entered into emergency contracts after one of the bus contract companies canceled 16 of its special education routes a week before the start of the school year.

Will bus routes change again after the school year starts?

The day before school started last year, the district sent a message telling families to check for changes to their bus routes. This year should be different.

“We’re not going to make last-minute changes. We’re not going to send them a new route every other day as we lead up to the start of the school year,” Siddiqui said.

This year, the school system gave itself a cutoff to provide routes to the contractors by Aug. 12 (most received them Aug. 3). Then the district asked bus contractors to complete dry runs, which continue this week. The dry runs are to help drivers familiarize themselves with routes, stress test the routes and provide feedback about the routes to the school system. After Wednesday, adjustments to routes should only be minor time changes where needed, Siddiqui said.

Will bus drivers have to double back again this year?

The short answer: no.

In years past, when the system was short on bus drivers, some drivers would complete one neighborhood route to a certain school, then immediately go back to another neighborhood and take those students to the same school. The double backs resulted in students waiting at school 30 to 45 minutes before the first bell, and then in the afternoon students were waiting around to go home.

“We don’t have the ability to do double backs [this coming school year]; there’s just not enough time,” Siddiqui said. This year, the earliest schools start at 7:50 a.m. and the latest start at 9:25 a.m.

Is the Zūm app functional to monitor the buses?

For all families whose school buses are from Zūm, the mobile app that allows them to track their child’s bus is available, a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. At the beginning of the last school year, the school system chose not to have the app available immediately so that it could be vetted for student data privacy.

And the school system said it’s made sure all of the numbers on the sides of the buses are the same as the parents see online.

How many electric buses does Zūm have in Howard County?

That’s not clear.

Zūm received approximately $26.6 million in January from the Biden administration to purchase 80 clean-energy school buses. Zūm is committed to having an all-electric fleet by 2027.

Zūm did not provide a specific number of electric buses currently serving Howard County schools. The company said “work is underway.”